Hardware Analysis Community Forums http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/47402/ 2008-11-23T04:37:26-05:00 http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/47402/ http://media.hardwareanalysis.com/halogo.gif text/html 2006-09-17T11:39:00-05:00 DublinGunner http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/47402/?o=20#446333 Creative labs have just released a liner of new sounds cards <a class="ext" href="/action/r/http://dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3827" target="_blank">http://dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3827</a><br /> aimed at music production. Any of the X-fi's are only a half assed attempt, as they are aimed at gamers. While they will do the job ok probably, nothing beats a poper dedicated card designed for music recording / production.<br /> <br /> Anyway, its the CPU that does 99% of the processing when it comes to recording and production, the only thing the sound card really does is take the sound in, and then play it back. So obviously the higher the sampling frequency and bit rate, the more data you have to work with, and the less loss of sound quality.<br /> <br /> None of the gaming cards really offer that much in that department to be honest, and they charge a premium for what they offer also.<br /> <br /> text/html 2006-09-16T22:52:16-05:00 Steve king http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/47402/?o=20#446257 This card is a semi-pro sound card, its not all about gaming.. This card is for making music for use with Cubase and the like, ASIO is the most important thing about this card the low level latency the high quality.. You guys talking about your Sound Blaster Live as if it still rocks obviosuly are not serious about making music, if you was you would know how much things have moved on.<br /> <br /> This card sounds like a bargain , but for gamers would be a complete waste of money, at the same point a semi-pro musician would probably checkout other well know Music cards first... text/html 2005-09-17T17:36:21-05:00 Arthur H http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/47402/?o=20#324768 I agree with the article. This is a marketing product to feel out the price which will drop when it is ignored. I love fools like the guy that makes the $1,000,000 car analogy. Its so easy to take their money.<br /> <br /> Ive been making systems since the 286 and the only product that delivered huge dividends for the price was the SB AWE32. That took gaming and computer sound to a completely new level. I now own an audigy2 and its good, but its no big deal over the Aureal Vortex3200. OK, the vortex was a pretty big product 2. Remember those?<br /> <br /> You need the klipsch THX speakers or any top end sound card will be a waste of money. Speakers are what makes the sound and they are the weak link in audio. I personally pipe through a high end home theatre BECAUSE OF THE SPEAKERS.<br /> <br /> I have an audigy 2 to offload processing from the cpu in games Otherwise the MB sound is quite good. text/html 2005-08-24T09:02:13-05:00 John Nguyen http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/47402/?o=20#315878 Well I've been surveying some forums from around the net, and most people are saying, for the first time, that Creative's software is good. So no worries there. So far, most people who have gotten a hold of this card have given little negative feedback about this new hardware, but few have recommened upgrading from an Audigy 2 ZS. text/html 2005-08-23T23:32:41-05:00 bob http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/47402/?o=20#315786 Well I'm looking forward to the high end version, I remember what adding a daughtercard with more memoery did for soundblaster, though I'm worried about the drivers, creatives drivers ever since live have had a bunch of stuff I don't need installed by default and often install srewy stuff in the root folder.<br /> <br /> Oh FYI remasterting means they go back to the metal{often gold} master copy and recopy that instead of whatever lossy format they have. So it's not getting better sound than the origanal, its making a better copy of the origanal you never had. I hope that makes sense. You should be able to find a decent explaintion in a libary or the net. text/html 2005-08-22T00:54:47-05:00 David http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/47402/?o=20#315175 Just incase anyones interested, overclockers.co.uk have announced their UK prices for the 3 models.<br /> <br /> Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music £99.99<br /> <br /> Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS Edition £179.72<br /> <br /> Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro £249.04<br /> <br /> no comment........<br /> <br /> David. text/html 2005-08-18T17:36:57-05:00 Yahoda Klaus http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/47402/?o=20#314030 .sovietdoc. &quot;Everybody knows that you cannot make the sound better than it's original recording&quot; <br /> If I buy jazz recordings from the 50's or 60' digitally remastered in last few years - they are sounding better than original - to my ears. <br /> So, you mean no souncard cannot put back these parts that are not there any more. True. <br /> But do they really claim this X-Fi does that? I dont think so. I have read quite a lot on this card and my understanding is this card may sense where the compression was applied to the source signal. Then the engine decides to boost some parts of audio spectrum to bring it closer to what it might have been originally. Josh Walrath from <a class="ext" target="_blank" href="/action/r/http://extremetech.com">extremetech.com</a> listened to what X-Fi can do at quakecon - and - he liked it: So maybe I'll give it a try myself. text/html 2005-08-16T17:49:48-05:00 John Nguyen http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/47402/?o=20#313402 . sovietdoc .: The thing is, you and I both don't know what Crystalizer is capable of. Your statements are just assumptions (that is, unless you've sampled the hardware yourself), and I'm sorry to say this, but I trust the websites that have reviewed some of the hardware more than you. You say that the &quot;good&quot; cards are $200-$400, but the $130 card is no different than the $200 one (just with some extras), and the more expensive 2 are the same thing as the lesser 2, but with some RAM, and more extras.<br /> <br /> Reconstructing sound files back to the original may be impossible, but I'm not quick to shoot down the idea that Cystalizer will be a convincingly good emulator. I could easily imagine that the process of &quot;reconstruction&quot; was a possibility, but you'd need a powerful dedicated processor to get the job done. Even if Crystalizer doesn't do what Creative states; if the &quot;Bass was extremely full and deep, highs were crystal clear and &quot;extra&quot; bits like reverb and presence were given much more life&quot; with Cystalizer turned on, and that &quot;the difference that the Crystalizer process makes is simply astounding&quot; (quotes from IGN), then I'd like to hear that in my own home computer. If &quot;headphone listening with X-Fi is genuinely mind-boggling, especially if you've never experienced this kind of acoustic phenomenon before.&quot; (quoted from THG), and you couple that with Crystalizer, this would a worthwhile piece of hardware. <br /> <br /> I'm not going to jump on the boat just yet because I'd like to hear impressions at a wider angle, but I'm not going to deny their claims completely, especially because of what I've read thus far. For now, X-Fi is on my list for a next upgrade. text/html 2005-08-15T23:51:04-05:00 Dave Purdy http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/47402/?o=20#313178 Just FYI for sovietdoc in particular, but the Audigy 2 (which I have), always upconverts everything to 192/24 (from a 32 bit multi point interpolation algorithm), and then the digital output is divided by 2 or 4 depending on the setting (96 or 48 KHz) for the digital out. This is a more sophisticated conversion that the straight line interpolation used on low end CD players. When &quot;reconstructing&quot; 192kbit files, it also uses this technique formerly only found on very high end DACs or CD players. So the X-fi has further improvements in that, and will improve the sound of lower sampling rate stuff, but you are right that it isn't quite the same as a real 96/24 recording. I have all my CDs ripped at their native 44.1 / 16 bit rates into WAV files, and I would not use mp3 usually, but the few mp3s I do have, sound pretty good, and I was surprised, but I have some tracks, (the same one), in both formats and the 44.1 clearly has more bandwidth and sounds more &quot;real&quot; in a side by side listening test. I have a two channel 4 way electronic crossover system built and designed from scratch, with two 18&quot; front radiating sub woofers. I don't even believe in single subs, because there is a loss of correct phase at certain frequencies that can't replace the subwoofer being intimately phased with the upper bass (an 8&quot; in my system), (which has a 2&quot; voice coild and a magnet so large it barely fits through the mounting hole, btw). This is what is necessary to deliver true high end sound, imho!<br /> <br /> Dave text/html 2005-08-15T22:11:19-05:00 sovietdoc http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/47402/?o=20#313126 First off, for all of you who fell into that &quot;Crystalizer&quot; crap, its a lie. Everybody knows that you cannot make the sound better than it's original recording. It might fool you and it would &quot;seem&quot; that it shouds better but actually it wont. DVD-Audio disks are recorded natively in 6 channel 96/24 sampling rate and no matter how much the soundcard poops over those 128kbps mp3's it won't make them to 24bit/96 khz because they were never recorded at that resolution. How can it &quot;reconstruct&quot; the audio wave if the data was never there? Huh? Magic? X-Fi? B.S. it can't. X-Fi looks to be more than Audigy 2 ZS compared to Audigy &quot;4&quot; (its a 2 really) but still, much less than creative is trying to advertise it. &quot;EAX 5&quot; and 128 voice support isnt all that great. A digital 8 channel &quot;standard&quot; that no companies agreed to use and the whole bunch of emulation crap doesn't worth 200-400$ (for a good X-Fi card). Creative needs Dolby Digital Live and 6-8 channel 192kHZ / 24bit support. I am more interested in their DTS Live DTS-610 encoder than the new X-Fi piece of crap that they're trying to advertise as &quot;BAD ASS MOFO&quot; which isn't actually that great at all =/ text/html 2005-08-11T18:09:20-05:00 Thomas Esposito http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/47402/?o=20#310998 The September issue of CGW has some virtual headphone surround samples on their DVD. These samples have been pre-processed by the X-Fi algorithms and encoded to .wav format. I can assure you that it DOES work. text/html 2005-08-11T08:53:03-05:00 John Nguyen http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/47402/?o=20#310822 So far, I like what Creative is going to offer this month.<br /> <br /> From what I've read around the net since E3 on May, X-Fi seems to be a lot more than a standard upgrade. I've been using a Sound Blaster Live! Gamer 5.1 for years, and the price was around $100. It was definitely worth it because I haven't had a single issue with sound ever since (issues like crackling/butchered sound, etc). $130 is a little extra that I'm willing to spend for 24-bit audio, better hardware acceleration, and overall, a better experience.<br /> <br /> Also, no one mentioned anything about the Crystalizer. Supposedly, it reconstructs all sorts of sound files (be it CD quality, or mp3), and converts it back to 24-bit studio quality. Most people in the forums I've read, relating to X-Fi, think that its a load of bull (impossible), or insignificant (no different than 16-bit CD), but they don't know for sure. Bigger sites like THG, and IGN have gotten to test this hardware, and their responses was of nothing but of amazement. Ok, I'm pretty aware that there could be some sort of conspiracy or bias, but I'm not going to be too skeptical about that.<br /> <br /> There's also something about reprocessing sounds to create virtual surround sound with standard stereo headphones. If it could actually do that, that would be awesome for me. I might want to spend more for the front bay, and even more so if the RAM offers anything special. <br /> <br /> Those are the two (new) things that I'm really anticipating. High definition sound with any source, and virtual surround sound via stereo headphones.<br /> <br /> I've noticed that there seems to be a split in opinions on this between forum regulars, and big internet sites. I think in all the forums I've visited, people just shot it down, saying that there's nothing special about it. Then on the other hand, sites that sampled the hardware gave nothing but praises on how good the sound is, no matter what file you throw at it.<br /> <br /> I like the way that Creative set the pricing points. If you just want the high quality accelerated sound with Crystalizer and surround sound with normal headphones, you could spend $130. It may be a lot to some, but to others, they may have expected the minimum price to be more for what it offers. For those who want the extra hardware for convenince and control at a higher price, they could go for the $200 one, and so on. <br /> <br /> I'm still going to hold out for about a month after its release to get a wider scope on what this hardware has to offer though. Like some people have said already, its best to sit back and see if there's anything major that needs to be addressed (i.e. Crystalizer doesn't do jack, or headphones just sound like normal headphones, etc). So long as it does what it advertises, it's worth it for me. text/html 2005-08-10T18:25:22-05:00 Thomas Esposito http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/47402/?o=20#310568 Edit: Oops, I reposted.<br /> text/html 2005-08-10T18:24:11-05:00 Thomas Esposito http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/47402/?o=20#310567 Sander,<br /> <br /> Envy24 might be equivalent or better to an Audigy 2 in terms of SNR, mixing, etc. That's fine for pre-recorded content playback. However, Envy24 lacks a DSP, which is a big difference IMHO.<br /> <br /> In principle, having a DSP dedicated to 3D audio is a good thing. Rendering virtual 3D audio environments in real-time requries LOTS of filters, and a DSP is optimized to handle this kind of work. More filters and more taps allows you to render more accurate environments. Sure, you can do ANYTHING with a fast enough CPU, but that doesn't change the fact that specialized hardware is going to be more efficient. For the moment, let's leave out the fact that actually figuring out which filters and which coefficients to use as a function of the environment (geometry, objects, materials, etc.) is a separate hard problem that isn't suitable for offloading to a DSP.<br /> <br /> If you want to argue simply that the entire architecture for 3D audio hardware acceleration is wrong, maybe you have a point. The fundamental problem is that the level of abstraction of 3D audio APIs leave the details of the underlying algorithm to the implementation. Perhaps Microsoft had a point back in the early days when they wanted to standardize the 3D audio filter algorithms instead of letting hardware manufacturers use their own custom algorithms. As a result, when using EAX, the resulting output will vary depending on your hardware. Ideally, we would have a general purpose DSP that the programmer can take full control of in order to accelerate audio filters. The developers could license the algorithms from someone like Creative, Dolby, SRS. Then, even if there are multiple different DSPs available (like GPUs), at least the developers would have a chance at keeping the 3D audio experience the same across different cards. If performance is lacking, you just prioritize which effects you want to apply filters to and leave the rest unaltered, OR you can support different quality filters (like different AA levels, or different texture levels) in a user-controlled manner.<br /> <br /> It simply may be that 3D audio research just hasn't progressed as far as 3D graphics. There are standard and accepted ways to do things in 3D graphics (perspective corrective texture mapping of polygons, etc.), but when it comes to 3D audio, all the players (Dolby, SRS, Spatializer, Creative, etc.) have their own secret sauce.<br /> <br /> text/html 2005-08-10T13:33:20-05:00 Beavis Khan http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/47402/?o=20#310395 Thanks for the Mystique link. Unfortunately one very good reason I have for sticking with socket A is money, or lack thereof <img src="http://media.hardwareanalysis.com/smilies/smile4.gif" width="14" height="14" border="0" alt=";)" title=";)"> Nice to know that when I do get around to upgrading there are some reasonable options, though.